1) Create an ad targeting straight couples, and hide it from gay couples. 2) Create an ad targeting gay couples, and hide it from straight couples.
If you query for "is anyone running an ad hidden from gay couples", this would return "yes".
However, my hunch (hope?) is that the prosecution was clever enough to account for this, and are specifically finding ad campaigns which are "unbalanced" (eg; there is no ad targeting group X).
Are the adds structured to exclude certain groups from certain properties: Problem
Are the adds structured to engage each group as much as possible: No problem.
There might be some grey area where you decide not to market certain properties to certain groups, because you think they aren't interested rather then because you don't want them.
> _not_ to show ads to "undesireable" people, like people with kids, or of a certain religion
What if I have a bar in Vegas almost exclusively frequented by young people in their twenties who go their to get drunk and meet singles. Why would I want to waste money showing an ad to people with kids who will not be interested and bring way less conversions than people with no kids in their twenties? What if I open a delicatessen shop that makes most of its business on porc meat and liquor, would I get a lot of conversions by paying to show such an ad to Muslims or would I be wasting money? What you want is advertisers to show their ads to people who are not interested and lose their money. That doesn't seem fair to me. People of different family situation (kids or no kids) or religions don't always share the same interests and that's ok.
If landlord does not want to rent out to people with kids - I (as a parent with kids) do NOT want to see that ad.
How forcing landlord to advertise to categories they do not want to serve -- would help to anybody?
As in the Alamo Drafthouse is more than welcome to have a women's night event for a particular movie, but if they refuse men at the door solely for their gender, that is illegal.
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/alamo-drafthouse-admi...
Can you articulate a difference between "targeting" and "discriminating", other than one being legal and one being illegal?
If one had a list of proxies for every ethnicity and individually assigned all but one would it qualify as legal targeting or illegal discrimination?
Would this format derived from US ethnicity census be legal: [x] White [] Black or African American [x] American Indian or Alaska Native [x] Asian or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
but a query of 'exclude "Black or African American"' be considered illegal even if they both map to an abbreviated form of hexadecimal B? Although it could be argued that by making the discriminators have to work harder to figure out how to exercise bigotry in advertising is a reasonable baseline.
The spirit of the law is clear but I wonder about the mechanics of it for avoiding all of the gross loopholes and technicalities and enforceability. Just advertising home listings in 'Farmer's Weekly' (for sake of example assuming it has an overwhelmingly white subscriber base) for selling an exurban house wouldn't prove discriminatory intent and short of memos giving racist directives to the marketing department being released.
I live in Austin and support the Drafthouse's lighthearted attempt to offer women an opportunity to enjoy themselves by themselves.
I am not a lawyer but it always struck me as unfair to a whole gender to treat them differently when they want to enter nightclubs. But of course this policy is also very ageist, biased against heavyset people etc. So do we ban that as well, since it's not something people can control?
The issue is that nobody is really going to be bothered to spend the money to haul those things into court.
If I'm willing to spend that much money, I can apply that same amount of money and wind up using it far more effectively than getting into a specific club or gym.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/judge-rules-nightclub-en...
http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/dude-sues-melbourne-nightclub-...
Even a place which excludes men openly is allowed to operate, though this is borderlin. Lucille Roberts was a successful chain of female-only gyms advertising itself nationwide as just for women.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/04/women-only-social-c...
Lack of advertising is not the same as "refuse to sell".
Tech has changed so you can do the targeting. You are violating the spirit of the law. The point is if you make sure blacks, Mexicans, or women can't see your ad you are trying to exclude them.
> You are violating the spirit of the law.
No.
The spirit of the law is to prohibit public racial propaganda. The spirit of the law is NOT about hunting down private biases.
I have no idea what you’re talking about with the “propaganda”, but everything you need to know is right there in the announcement: “The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing transactions including print and online advertisement on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, or familial status. HUD's Secretary-initiated complaint follows the Department's investigation into Facebook's advertising platform which includes targeting tools that enable advertisers to filter prospective tenants or homebuyers based on these protected classes.”
So both the spirit and letter of the law forbid discrimination, and they are arguing that Facebook enables illegal discrimination on their platform.
"Advertising housing" is NOT "housing transaction". Transaction happens when landlord and renter signing renting agreement.
>>(c) To make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.
Answer me this. How on Facebook you would expect an excluded person to be able to know about the sale?
They wouldn't. The housing listing doesn't exist for them.
How do you see this as fair?!
I am blown away by all the casual racism all throughout this thread.
Mind you, I do think that ads targeted only to e.g. certain races are crappy and probably violate the law, but that certainly isn't as obvious from the links people are providing.
Its a hard truth to swallow.
The rest of this isn't directed just at you astura.
If this was some random Facebook or 4chan comment would you be so quick to come to that rationalization?
I feel we like to think the individuals we associate with on HN are like minded. To admit they aren't is almost a personal affront. To keep the disillusion going we must rationalize and make up excuses for them or how they behave.
But sometimes a duck is a duck.
I too am confused how targeting may be illegal under a law that forbids discrimination and discriminating content of ads - I am not familiar with the law. Lack of knowledge/understanding doesn’t make me “racist”.
Some other comments in this inflammatory thread helped me get the point, but your attacks on everybody as racists-by-defaul are deeply bigoted and insulting.
Thinking about it, people who disagree with me by thinking that it is okay to deny housing based on race is by definition racist, no? The fact is clearly spelled out in law.
I'm not even saying someone disagrees with me. Where do you see that? I stated that there is casual racism in this thread.
I understand there is confusion in the law regarding targeting specifically. But stand back and take a look at the bigger picture of what the technology we create could allow. Like other real self proclaimed proud racists who would only use the service without understanding how it works.
It's not that it's targeting. It's not allowing those your not targeting to be part of the open market.
If you are something, someone calling it out is not an attack or bigotry. Sometimes the truth hurts.
I still don't believe that merely providing the option to create potentially discriminatory ads is a problem for Facebook, since the same options have perfectly valid usage. It should be the landlord's responsibility to use them correctly.
Who did I accuse of racism? I stated people in the thread are being casually racist but didn't name any names.
Haven't we been learning as developers or operators that it's better to put processes and systems in place to prevent human error opposed to relying on human judgement alone? Why the slack with this issue?
Would you also require natural language processing to detect illegal text?
> § 109.25 Selective use of advertising media or content.
> The selective use of advertising media or content when particular combinations thereof are used exclusively with respect to various housing developments or sites can lead to discriminatory results and may indicate a violation of the Fair Housing Act. For example, the use of English language media alone or the exclusive use of media catering to the majority population in an area, when, in such area, there are also available non-English language or other minority media, may have discriminatory impact. Similarly, the selective use of human models in advertisements may have discriminatory impact. The following are examples of the selective use of advertisements which may be discriminatory:
> (a) Selective geographic advertisements. Such selective use may involve the strategic placement of billboards; brochure advertisements distributed within a limited geographic area by hand or in the mail; advertising in particular geographic coverage editions of major metropolitan newspapers or in newspapers of limited circulation which are mainly advertising vehicles for reaching a particular segment of the community; or displays or announcements available only in selected sales offices.
> (b) Selective use of equal opportunity slogan or logo. When placing advertisements, such selective use may involve placing the equal housing opportunity slogan or logo in advertising reaching some geographic areas, but not others, or with respect to some properties but not others.
> (c) Selective use of human models when conducting an advertising campaign. Selective advertising may involve an advertising campaign using human models primarily in media that cater to one racial or national origin segment of the population without a complementary advertising campaign that is directed at other groups. Another example may involve use of racially mixed models by a developer to advertise one development and not others. Similar care must be exercised in advertising in publications or other media directed at one particular sex, or at persons without children. Such selective advertising may involve the use of human models of members of only one sex, or of adults only, in displays, photographs or drawings to indicate preferences for one sex or the other, or for adults to the exclusion of children.
Targeted advertising was already a thing when these regulations were written decades ago; internet advertising is just a difference in scale and cost.
However, what FB is doing is...that young couple reads the magazine and can't see the ad, but a senior citizen can.
IANAL...and for what it's worth there's a similar lawsuit for age discrimination for job hiring. Post ads only for certain age target.
Yes. Which is a good thing, because it saves time both to renters and landlords.
It also does not offend anyone, because there is no public age discrimination wording in the ad.
The most important part for our discussion here: there is no public promotion of age superiority in these ads. Therefore this Fair_Housing_Act does NOT apply.
When it comes to protected classes, it's not 'saving time' because a landlord acting legally is equally likely to rent to either group.
https://www.thebalance.com/fair-housing-act-violation-179889...
https://www.thebalance.com/fair-housing-act-violation-179889...
You want to target only a specific group that, under the law, can't be targeted/avoided? Fine, but then you have to create at least 3 segments on this ad to target at least 3 different groups, to prove that you are not discriminating.
A segment would be a version of the ad (design, copy, etc) + targeted group.
edit: my point here is that it should be Facebook's responsibility to make it difficult for publisher to post illegal ads, not the other way around.
If you'd like to target a specific demographic you can do so using either inclusionary or exclusionary targeting. Only one of those systems also allows you to explicitly exclude one or more groups rather than just target a subset of groups. Your example seems to be a very charitable interpretation of how exclusionary targeting could be used. There's (probably) nothing wrong with it if it's used that way. But you could just as easily use the system you described to prevent a variety of protected demographics from being able to see the advertisement whatsoever.
https://www.ajc.com/visitor_agreement_mobile_old/
Equal Housing Opportunity. Any real estate advertising on this website is subject to the Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to advertise "any preference limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination." Georgia state law also forbids discrimination based on these factors, except that it forbids discrimination based on "disability" rather than "handicap." Familial status includes children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians; pregnant women and people securing custody of children under 18. To complain of discrimination call the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development at 800-669-9777.
https://www.sharinghousing.com/what-the-fair-housing-act-mea...
Craigslist says something different.
https://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA#roommates
Under federal Fair Housing law, the prohibition on discriminatory advertisements applies to all situations except the following:
Shared Housing Exemption -- If you are advertising a shared housing unit, in which tenants will be sharing a bathroom, kitchen, or other common area, you may express a preference based upon sex only.
Private Club and Religious Exemptions -- A religious community or private club whose membership is not restricted based upon race, color, or national origin may restrict tenancy only to its members in a property that it owns, and may advertise to that effect.
Housing for Older Persons Exemption -- As discussed below, certain complexes for elderly persons are exempt from prohibitions on familial status discrimination, including the prohibitions on discriminatory advertising.
>Decision-making: Although the prohibition on discriminatory advertising applies to roommate and shared housing situations, federal Fair Housing laws do not cover the basis of decisions made by landowners who own less than four units, and live in one of the units. This means that in a situation in which a landlord owns less than four rental units, and lives in one of the units, it is legal for the owner to discriminate in the selection process based on the aforementioned categories, but it is illegal for that owner to advertise or otherwise make a statement expressing that discriminatory preference.
I wonder if someone who has a particular dietary restriction (kosher, halal, gluten free, vegan, etc.) can express a preference for a like minded person.
I also told the recruiter that I wasn’t going to hire a guy because he smelled like cigarette smoke, I would be working closely with him and it bothered my asthma. Cigarette smoking is not protected in some states - including mine.
So if you're the Catholic Church running a women's boarding house on the upper east side of Manhattan, you are allowed to advertise to (and rent to) only women, but you can't restrict it further to only Catholic women.
Speaking of which, the Roomi app might potentially be doing illegal things in turning housing search into a social network.
Good lord. Does that mean that so many advertisers track your activities so thoroughly that they figured out you're gay?
Not saying that it's not creepy, just that with the way we use the internet these days, it's not an epic feat for an advertiser to figure this out given the amount of data we put out there.
There was a thing a few years back where Target was able to determine if someone was pregnant based on their purchasing habits [0].
Facebook, Google and others gather and track orders of magnitude more information than Target could ever dream of can certainly figure out if you are gay, straight, and anything else.
0: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
As a gay person, I see this all over the web. Smiling happy gay people buying cars or real estate or whatever. I imagine that behind each of these ads straight people have been de-selected for seeing this ad. But that doesn't mean these advertisers hate straight people or would deny a straight customer. It just means that for that specific ad and creative they were targeting gay people.